This blog is dedicated to Computer RolePlaying Games (CRPG) that have been released a long time ago or new games with CRPG heritage and that I will revisit in one way or another. I will either replay them or write about the hidden gems well worth playing today. Games will be played through Dosbox or WinUAE.

Currently playing: Sword Coast Legends, Skyrim

July 1, 2012

Abandoned Places 2 - The Tower

I was looking for a tower of some sorts as my next step according to what I was told in the dwarven mines when founding the shield. I looked feverishly through two whole outdoor maps. Unfortunately they are extremely empty of interesting places. There are some rivers or lakes here and there together with scattered trees and some random monsters. Nothing more. No interesting places, no descriptions, no items or chests. Nothing. The outdoor part of the game is far too big for what is contained within.

Anyway, I did skip to map the whole second area because of this and was almost about to give up when I stumbled upon an opening in a forest.

The entrance to my next goal

I entered and found myself within some sort of halls. It doesn´t resemble a tower so I cannot be sure what this place is. But new graphics and new inhabitants attacked me on sight so I suppose this is a place to be cleared out regardless.

Druidic priests casting spells at me

This chest was at the end of a disorienting journey through fire hexes

This first level of the complex contained secret walls, treasures behind seas of fire and traps. The level swarmed with priests trying to stop my group from venturing forth but they where quickly disposed of. I had to go down to a level below the starting level to find a key and a magic sapphire and then return back to the starting level. Down in the basement I stumbled upon an alchemists laboratory where I found a lot of scrolls and potions.

Anyway, up at the starting level again I soon got stuck and couldn´t continue. I had to check for a solution for this and was astonished to find out that I have missed a button that is hardly visible even when you look at it.

Checkout the picture below. I have marked the place which acts as a recess below. Compare it with the left recess. It is very, very hard to notice it when all the walls looks like this and also when I have only found one such hard-to-find place in the whole game so far.

Anyway, when pressed it removed a pillar that allowed me access to a lever. When pulled a closed door opened and led me to a huge hall where I had to fight numerous priests and nuns. The hall contained a locked chest and the only way to open it was with the key brought from the level below. The chest contained a magical sapphire and some other stuff. The hall also had stairs leading up to level 2 of the tower.

Who said nuns seem innocent ?

During my explorations I find magical armours or items here and there but when they don´t affect the statistics or any health- or magical abilities, it is hard to determine its true value. I already begin to fill my invetory slots up again. Mostly with valuables such as necklaces and gems.

The levels attained by my individual characters are extremely diversed. One of my fighters is only level 7 but my mage Trian is at level 17. The others are at level 10 and 14 respectively. I am pushing forward but I am getting tired of pursuing level after level without much variation or with no interesting character developments or interesting places. I am not sure I will try to complete this game just for the sake of completing it or if I should spend my valuable freetime more carefully with some other game. After all, this game has had a deep revisit already which is enough for reviewing it.

If you like old-school RPGs, you´ll love this!

Who am I ?

Stockholm, Sweden
I grew up with Commodore 64 and Amiga and the first CRPG that totally blowed me away was Bard´s Tale for C-64 in 1988.
New RPGs tends to be more and more simplistic and consolified so I have begun to return to the roots to feed my hunger for CRPGS.
Professionally I work as a systems developer and project leader.